Anxiety may be the dizziness of freedom. Soren Kierkegaard
Forever is composed of the Nows. Emily Dickinson
To be liked by everyone you would have to be the blandest person ever. Matt Haig
Life isn’t about what you are doing, but about what you are being. Matt Haig
Reading isn’t important because it helps you get a job. It’s important because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you’re given. It’s how humans merge. How minds connect. Dreams. Empathy. Understanding. Escape. Matt Haig
The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates
Of what value is learning that does not turn to love? Anthony of Padua
The artist is not one who creates beauty, but the one who looks for it. Brennan Manning
I have been reading a lot lately, occasionally writing, even wrote a huge piece on my thoughts regarding the author of the poem below and his impact on me. Yet the added words feel fleeting and unnecessary. It’s sad really.
Because once someone dared
to want you,
I know that we, too, may want you.
When gold is in the mountain
and we’ve ravaged the depths
till we’ve given up digging,
it will be brought forth into day
by the river that mines
the silences of stone.
Even when we don’t desire it,
God is ripening.
I, 16 from The Book of a Monastic Life by Rainer Maria Rilke
Similarly to the speaker in this piece, I don’t always want what God has to offer me. In fact I try my hardest not to be a recipient of what God has to offer. I’m fixated upon what I can do in the world, and it tends to end in vain. I get this overwhelming sense that God constantly is just waiting for me to lean on my pickaxe, bloodied and blistered hands, dust lining my lungs, and give up digging. I am still a child, and God sees these things and probably smiles (hopefully), perfectly willing to step in whenever I feel the weight of myself trying to press on here. In attempt to sum up his work in a few words, Karl Barth said, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Next time you hear that jingle, remember one of the greatest theologians has copyright. In all seriousness, I hope to attach this to my being everyday, in hopes that I am compelled to live out of this and only this.
Peace,
Austin Spence